Displaced Yazidis, fleeing violence by jihadist forces loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, walk toward the Syrian border, on the outskirts of Mount Sinjar. Militants have killed at least 500 members of the Iraqi ethnic minority during their offensive in the north, according to the country's human-rights minister.
Here, a look at a few of the tens of thousands of Yazidis and Christians who have had to run for their lives during ISIS's push to within a 30-minute drive of the Kurdish regional capital Erbil.
Yazidis from the Iraqi town of Sinjar travel in a vehicle as they re-enter Iraq from Syria at a border crossing in Fishkhabour, Dohuk province, on Thursday.
Displaced people ride on a truck as they are evacuated from Mount Sinjar with the help of members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (known as the YPG), as they make their way toward Newroz refugee camp in Syria's al-Hasakah province on Wednesday.
Displaced Yazidis settle in abandoned houses as they take shelter in Mount Sinja on Wednesday. A U.S. mission to evacuate Iraqi civilians trapped on the mountain by Sunni militant fighters is far less likely after a U.S. assessment team found the humanitarian situation not as grave as expected, the Pentagon said.
Iraqi Yazidi women sit at a school where they are taking shelter in the Kurdish city of Dohuk in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region. The Yazidis are a small community that follows a 4,000-year-old faith and have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists who call them "devil-worshipers" because of their unique beliefs and practices.
Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty
Displaced people re-enter Iraq from Syria at the border crossing in Fishkhabour.
Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
Thousands of Yazidis were trapped in the mountains as they tried to escape from Islamic State militants, but were rescued by Kurdish Peshmerga forces and People’s Protection Unit personnel in Mosul last Saturday.
Emrah Yorulmaz/Anadolu Agency, via Getty
Iraqi Yazidi refugees gather in a tent at Newroz camp in northeastern Syria on Thursday, after fleeing Islamic State militants. The number of Iraqi civilians arriving in camps on both sides of the Syrian border after being besieged for days by jihadist fighters has declined sharply, a UN spokesman said.
Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty
Yazidi refugees gather to receive food at the Newroz camp. Nearly 1,000 Iraqi families have taken refuge in the Syrian province of Hasaka despite the raging civil war there that has ravaged the country since March 2011 and killed more than 170,000 people.
Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty
Displaced Yazidis rest in the shade amid garbage at the Iraqi-Syrian border crossing in Fishkhabour on Wednesday.
Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
Yazidi refugees hold banners as they take part in a demonstration at the Iraqi-Syrian border crossing in Fishkhabour on Wednesday. Demonstrators demanded protection and evacuation from Iraq to safer areas, such as Europe and the United States.
Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
A displaced woman looks out from an abandoned house where she is taking refuge in the southeastern Turkish town of Silopi, on Wednesday. Thousands of Iraqis, most of them ethnic minority Yazidis, have fled to the Turkish border to escape.
Kadir Baris/Reuters
